Page 179 - Successful Onboarding

166 • Successful Onboarding

with people deploying the initiative, or alternatively, developing some dif-
ferent career paths that would have excited him. Charles might not have
left the firm, since his concern about being promoted in 6 months might
have been addressed, and he would have known exactly what he would
have needed to do to make his promotion happen.
Early career support holds great potential for firms as a part of onboard-
ing, offering not merely a chance to improve retention, but also to
heighten new hires’ overall enthusiasm and productivity. Most firms today
make only limited and late use of career development, seeing it as a reward
for employee loyalty rather than what it could be—a powerful means of
nurturing it. Even more than social networking, extensive use of early
career support could enable firms to gain a competitive edge by redefin-
ing the employer-employee compact in a way meaningful to 21st century
workers. Combine this with educating new hires on strategy, and provid-
ing associated direction (against that strategy), the subject of the next chap-
ter, and new hires are poised to increase the value they can contribute to
your company at an early stage in their careers.